Time for an Update
And it’s the hardest post I’ve ever had to write…
Pete Cava in the Indianapolis Indians Press Box, photo credit: The Indianapolis Indians
I’ve been avoiding my blog, my writing. My first excuse was I had a baby in September, and the recovery of that took some time. As December started, I was starting to feel like I could get my bearings and dive back in to my work, and updating the blog about my third trimester, my birth story, and my first months postpartum.
But then, on December 18, 2019, my dad died. Just like that. He was here one minute, and gone the next. I haven’t been ready to put those words down. Every time I have to say it or put it in writing, it’s like I have to experience the loss all over again. And it cut deep. But I also know that I do better when I allow the grief a place to go, to let it flow through me in order to continue to process it. Because this isn’t something that just gets better eventually. Nothing is okay after a sudden loss like this, it’s just about trying to find a new way of living life without him in it. That’s basically impossible to do with someone who was larger than life…
On the day of my father’s death, I spoke to him for what would be the very last time. He called because someone called my parent’s house looking for me, saying I was owed money and they were going to help me get it. Typical dad, he was very skeptical and gave me all the facts when he called me. He even said “So, you think this is legit?” I told him I had no idea, but that I would look into it and figure out what was going on. He told me to “kiss the bambinella” (what he had started calling my daughter), and that he loved us. He was off to have dinner with friends to discuss an upcoming SABR event (baseball related, of course).
My mom called me that night and told me that my dad was being taken from the restaurant to the hospital, that he had gotten violently ill and was complaining of chest pains. Now, when my dad got sick, he would really get knocked out. Speculating with my mom, we thought maybe it was just food poisoning. We had no details other than what she had been told, so we had no idea what was going on. After a few calls back and forth to each other (and a quick call to my brother just to let him know what was going on), my mom was getting picked up by a family friend, who had been having dinner with my dad, and taken to the hospital. She had just had cataract surgery the week before in one eye only, and the roads weren’t great thanks to Indiana winters. I remember feeling grateful she wasn’t going to have to make the drive by herself downtown.
As I sat on the couch that night watching TV with my partner, waiting for the phone call to update me that all was well, I started to feel more and more anxious. I try really hard not to be a big worrier, but it’s in me to worry, and as much as I kept telling myself he was going to be okay, I could feel the pit in my stomach growing. I didn’t want to annoy my mom with a call, but I kept picking up the phone wanting to call her. Finally, my cell phone rang. And my mom said, “Honey, I’m so sorry, he’s gone.” And my world stopped. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, like someone had punched me hard in the gut, and time just stood still.
No. There’s no way this is happening. He can’t be gone. I just sat there and listened to my mom tell me what happened, with tears streaming down my face as I just broke down. I pictured her sitting in the hospital, hating myself for being so far away and not being able to be there right in that moment. He had an aortic dissection, and made it as far as the emergency room at Methodist Hospital. My mom was able to get there to be with him in time, and he passed away not longer after. He was never stable enough to make it into surgery, and there were no guarantees surgery would have saved him anyway.
I sobbed. I cried for myself, because I loved my father. We had had our moments the past year, and I had certainly tested his values by getting pregnant before marriage. We had moved beyond that, and I had also given my parents a bit of a scare when I gave birth, as I had to have a blood transfusion and had some complications after delivering my daughter. But I had looked up to my dad my entire life. He was truly the best father I could have ever, ever, hoped for.
My parents, being silly at a friend’s graduation party, sometime in ‘99
I cried for my mom, because she had just lost her husband, a man who loved her more than anyone could ever love anyone else. He was a big ole softie when it came to her, and he would gush about how much he loved her on a regular basis - to the point where I was often rolling my eyes and saying, ew dad, I get it, you love her, enough already (but all the while smiling because it was the most beautiful, genuine love that you just don’t get to see every day).
My father and my daughter, September 2019
And I cried for my daughter. Because my dad was meant to be a grandfather. He had always loved kids, he grew up with a huge family and had cousins upon cousins growing up in NYC. He was great with kids, thanks to his large family. He loved being around them, and kids LOVED my dad. And I’m not just talking about family and friends. He was great with total stranger’s kids too - one time he helped a mom out in a waiting room whose child was just having a rough moment. He got my mom to tell that woman that he was great with kids - long story short the next thing you know, my dad is standing there bouncing that baby and singing the Fordham Fight Song, and the child just stops crying and looks up at my dad and settled down instantly. That was his trick, sing the Fordham Fight song to any crying baby and it worked 99.9% of the time.
I realized my daughter would never remember her Pappy (the nickname he gave himself - this from the same man who swore no one could ever call him anything but “Big Pete”, or “Don Pedro”). We only had the week after she was born in September, and the week my family spent together in NY in November at my grandmother’s celebration of life, together. That was it. My daughter wasn’t even 3 months old when he passed away. That wasn’t enough time. He was supposed to be here, to watch her grow up, to be a part of all her firsts… But the only first we got was her first Thanksgiving with a video chat back home. All of her firsts now are also our firsts without my dad, and that hurts the most.
I heard recently that you live only as long as the last person that remembers you. If that’s the case, I believe my father will be living many lifetimes over. He left one hell of a mark on this world, and it was shown to me by the outpouring of love and stories I heard after he was gone, from those whose lives he had touched.
Me and my dad, sometime in the mid/late 80s…
I am forever grateful for the time we had with him. No amount of time would ever have been enough anyway. I’m grateful that even though it was such a short period of time, he had the opportunity to be a grandfather. I will never forget the first words he said to my daughter after the grueling 12+ hour drive my poor parents had to endure to get here after she arrived. He walked into my house, clearly spent, took one look at her, and said “Well kid, you were worth it.” I’ll never forget when he held her for the first time, how he teared up and needed someone else to hold her while he composed himself. And I’ll never forget the way he sang to her, and the way his big hands held her and how absolutely tiny she looked in them. The same hands that he used to put on my forehead when I was little and would get sick, because it was the only thing that would help me feel better (I would say to him “Daddy, put your hand on my head like you do”).
And I’ll never forget my dad’s last email to me, the one he sent right before he went out to dinner the night he passed away. It was short, to the point, and so typical of my father…
“So, who owes you M?? Can I have fi’ dollahs?”
RIP Daddius/Pappy/Big Pete. I will always love you and will never, ever, forget you.
For those that haven’t seen it, here’s dad’s obituary. There’s a link to view a tribute movie that has more pictures from throughout his life as well.
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/indianapolis-in/pete-cava-8971465